Eileen Collins

LEGO calls the Discovery model “the most detailed LEGO Space Shuttle to date.”Photo: LegoThe new space race has everyone excited for more powerful rockets, treks to Mars, and everything in between. For your friends and family caught up in all this excitement, we have these excellent gift recommendations to share. Not since the Cold War has interest in space and spaceflight been so intense. Not a day passes anymore without something cool happening in this area, whether it’s mind-boggling new images from the Webb Space…

Photo: NASAOn October 25, 2007, NASA astronaut Peggy A. Whitson, then commander of the ISS), greeted Pamela Melroy, a commander of a visiting Space Shuttle. This moment, captured 15 years ago, marked the first handshake between two women commanders in space. Since then, 44 women have worked aboard the ISS as long-duration crew members or as visitors from Space Shuttle assembly flights and Soyuz missions.Whitson holds the record for most cumulative spaceflight time, not only for a woman, but for any U.S.astronaut. She…